


demons under my bed

by daisyrachel



Series: coldatom monster au [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, M/M, Ray is a nerd, Slow Burn, len is the monster, monster au, monster discourse, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 04:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11455740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyrachel/pseuds/daisyrachel
Summary: “A human?” She said, laughing hysterically. “I thought you didn’t get attatched.”Len looked down at his drink and stirred. “Well maybe now I do.”





	demons under my bed

**Author's Note:**

> so a lot of people asked for clarification on what kind of a monster len is! i originally left it ambiguous on purpose, but here he's kind of like, an ice dragon? so mick is a regular fire dragon, and sara is a harpy. also, you become a monster by committing an unforgivable crime.

Len had greatly enjoyed yelling at Ray’s friends to appreciate him more. He kicked them out of his house, but not before saying they were welcome to come back. That had been a week ago, and Ray had insisted on visiting every day since.

Len had learned a little bit more about what their “team” did. “We’re kind of, crime fighting, mystery solving vigilantes?” Ray had said while playing cards. “We solve crimes and fight bad guys. Like if Scooby-Doo met the Avengers.”

Len smiled. Seemed like a pretty fun existence to him. “Flush,” he said, “Putting down his cards. 

Ray looked at him quizzically. “I thought we were playing Go Fish?” Len’s tail laughed while he wagged. 

He was happier than he had been in a while.

+

He enjoyed talking to Ray, possibly more than he enjoyed talking to Mick. Sara spat out her vodka on to her wings when he told her that. “A human?” She said, laughing hysterically. “I thought you didn’t get attatched.”

Len looked down at his drink and stirred. “Well maybe now I do.”

+

Ray still visited him every day, but once a week the rest of his team visited too, as a thank you for sparing their lives. They still said thank you no matter how many times Len told him he would never have actually killed any of them.

He despised all of them. Ray needed better friends.

+

The first time Mick met Ray, it ended in disaster. Mick had showed up while he and Ray were in the middle of a card game. Possibly blackjack? Mick had shown up and said he wanted to play. Ray of course, had been perfectly lovely, and let the fire man join. Len wanted to warn him not to, that Mick was rough, that he cheats, that he would mercilessly torture the human man given the chance.

The two men got along famously.

By the end of the evening they had exchanged phone numbers. Len didn’t have Ray’s phone number. Len didn’t even know that Mick had a phone. And Len did not like the feeling in his stomach.

+

The next day, he walked into the bar a little bit late to Sara and Mick laughing. “Whatever did I miss?” he asked.

Sara kept laughing, while Mick took a pause. “We were laughing about how into the human kid you are,” said Mick, “In fact, we were just about to text him!”

Len freezes their drinks and walks away from their cries of “We were just kidding, man!”

+

If Len hadn’t mentioned it before, he really hates Ray’s friends. At some point their playing a game of cards, it’s spit this time if he remembers correctly, and he asks Ray what he meant the very first night when he said he knew the reason he was supposed to be the human sacrifice.

Ray puts down his cards and sighs. “Felicity does the tech stuff, Oliver’s the leader, Dig’s our master strategist, Laurel has the best hand to hand combat, and Thea is our best undercover agent.”

“So?”

“So where does that leave me? I’m kind of useless, I don’t really know why they keep me around.”

Len doesn’t know how to articulate to Ray that he is so much better, so much more that any of those dumb friends of his could ever be. So instead he just gives the boy a pat on the shoulder. He is met with Ray pulling him into a hug.

Len hasn’t felt like this in a very long time.

+

The more time Len spends with Ray, the more Len feels himself opening up. So when Ray asks him why he became a monster, he wants to tell him. “Will you freak out if I do?” Ray promises not to.

So Len tells him. “I murdered someone in cold blood.”

But Ray presses. “But that’s not an unforgivable crime, is it? That’s not enough to be a monster.”

“Some murders are,” Len says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Like patricide.” Ray’s mouth forms a small “o” shape, and Len feels the need to explain, so he does. He tells Ray about his father, how he could talk the punches but his sister couldn’t. He tells him about pushing his father into the ice, about being saved but being told he could never contact his sister again, and deciding leaving her alone was better than leaving her with an abusive asshole.

Ray listens intently. When Len is done, he picks himself up, and walks out of the house.

+

Len didn’t see Ray for a week. He hadn’t realized his feelings for the boy were this strong until Mick told him to slap out of it. Apparently he had been drinking himself blind every night for the past week, and sleeping at the house, not wanting to leave in case he might miss Ray.

He stopped drinking, which just meant he had more time to spend at the house.

Eventually, Felicity showed up. (The girlfriend who had dumped Ray, which Len couldn’t believe, because being in a relationship requires a mutual affection, ad he truly doesn’t understand how once having affection for Ray, one can actually stop.)

Felicity holds up a deck of cards. “Want to play?”

+

Felicity comes back the next week. “He wants to come back, you know,” said Felicity, “But he thinks he has to do something first. He has some top secret project that he won’t even tell any of us about.”

Len takes a sip of his soda, and ok it was beer in a coca cola bottle, and says “Tell him he doesn’t have to do anything special for me. Just tell him to come back.”

+

Ray shows up two days after his second game of cards with Felicity, phone in hand. He scrambles at an apology. “I’m sorry for just running out like that,” says Ray, “I get distracted sometimes, and-“

“There’s no problem at all,” Len says, ice cold. “You couldn’t handle it, it’s fine. You’re free to go Raymond.”

Ray quickly shakes his head. “No, no, no! That’s not it at all. Your story seemed familiar, and well, I wanted to make it right.” Len looked at Ray pointedly, still confused. “Well, my sophomore year of undergrad, there was this girl in my physics class. I didn’t know her too well, except one night we were at a party and we go really drunk together.”

“Underage drinking, Raymond?” Len asks, making a disapproving noise. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“That’s not the point,” he says, turning a little pink. “We were both going through rough times. It was just a few weeks after Anna, well, you know.” Len nodded. The night Ray had told him about Anna, his first love, the girl he was going to marry, and her tragic death had been a tearful one. “And this other girl, well, it was something like the ten year anniversary of her brother becoming a monster and her father dying, from being pushed into the ice.”

Len’s eyes widened. It was too impossible, there’s no way. “Um, so I went back to my parents house,” Ray continued, “And tried to track her down, to figure out her name. I found her in my yearbook; Lisa Snart. After that, well, it was a simple google search, and she’s well, I think you might want to see for yourself.”

Ray hold up the phone, a picture of Lisa on the screen. He clicks the screen again, and she begins to talk. “Hi Lenny,” she says, looking like she’s being crying a little bit, “If Ray’s right, and you do see this, he’s going to give you some specific instructions about how to respond so you don’t break your promise, but I wanted to tell you what I’m doing. I’m an engineer but,” she laughed, wiping away a tear with her sleeve, “I’m working on trying to make gold into a into a renewable energy source. Could never give the shiny stuff up, huh? I wanted you to know Len, I love you, and more importantly, I forgive you. Now kiss the dumbass who wasted two weeks of his life trying to track me down for you.”

And Len does, having to think about it less than he’s ever thought about anything else in his entire life. He kisses Raymond, and for the first time since he pushed his water into a cold bay, he feels okay.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or kudos to show me you care! holla at me on tumblr : raymondpalmef.tumblr.com


End file.
